And so, the Cleveland Cavaliers are, for the fourth straight seasons, in the Finals of the NBA Eastern Conference after sweeping the Toronto Raptors, 4-0, in their best-of-seven Final Four series.

It was also the second consecutive campaign in which they'd suffered a sweep at the hands of the Cavs.

After a franchise-record 59 wins, good for the top seed in the Eastern Conference, it was as tough a defeat as DeRozan has endured.

"I think he's understanding the importance of conserving energy", Bryant said of the 2018 version of James.

"All three games have presented different plays that would have to be done at certain points of the game to get over the hump", veteran C.J. Miles said prior to Monday morning's shootaround. "It's a great feeling that I'm able to just kind of rebound and dish to guys, and they can be great". "That's what I always feel, so a wasted year for me".

Lue said playing James with the Cavs' second unit helped negate the Toronto bench.

James went to the podium for his post-game interviews wearing a black hat that simply read "Don't Trip".

"Well, first of all, when I was growing up, goat was a bad thing, right?" This team is the best that the franchise has seen in its history. The Raptors are well over the cap for next season with no real wiggle room to try and shuffle their roster.

Neither Lowry nor DeRozan directly endorsed Casey on Tuesday, but both spoke glowingly about their coach.

DeRozan: "Listen [to] what I'm trying to explain though, bro".

"They wanted it more than us", Valanciuas said.

I guess we shouldn't be surprised that LeBron has worked on his game so much that he's logged considerable practice time on wrong-legged, hang-in-the-air-forever, bank shots at the buzzer.

"We weren't ready to be as physical as we needed to be", Lowry said. "We just lost our head". Sharpe than asked Kuzma the big question that a lot of players debate - LeBron James or Kevin Durant.

"It was a great series for us", James said in a postgame television interview on TNT.

If last summer was long, what's this one looking like for DeRozan? He has more game winning shots in the playoffs than Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan combined, including his stunning floater off the backboard against Toronto's Raptors the other day. "That is what our goal is, so we are excited about that, we're humbled about it, and we're going to continue to get better throughout this week".

But at this point, it probably doesn't matter to LeBron or his teammates. We've seen teams that have reaped the rewards from egregiously tanking over the past several seasons like Philadelphia, but we've also seen teams that are still in the same place years after they originally started tanking like Orlando. Whether it was through shooting, defending, playmaking, or just being able to grind it out in some of the Cavs smaller-sized lineups, each player did some part in making this possible. "I'm definitely about to get some rest".